The Slip in her Sanity
by Emmalyn Black
Summary: After everyone else has packed up and left the scene, Booth decides there's something more to the body-dump site than just an odd-looking lake and takes Brennan exploring... only to find that he is - for once - correct...


**THE SLIP IN HER SANITY**

She was keeping as quiet as possible, trying not to let on that she knew anything was amiss. After all, it wasn't every day he'd actually come along to help with a case. Usually, he'd just stand there looking important - or not be there at all.

It was beginning to get late, but the man in the stream could wait no longer. She was already an hour or two late for an important meeting, and something told her she wouldn't be showing up for a long time yet. This was surely not going to be an easy one - every long bone fractured or fragmented, his skull in pieces, and no meat or clothes anywhere to be seen. The man looked as if he'd been de-skinned and de-boned - and they'd thrown the latter here - just like what might one day happen to the little fish swimming around his remains.

"What happened to him?" her partner said, disgusted.

"What do you think?" replied one of her lab techs. "He was murdered."

"Well, that's clear enough." Another tech.

"Clear as that water… a bit odd, don't you think?" Her intern.

"It's best not to speculate," she reprimanded, "until we get all the facts."

So the retrieval of John Doe's remains continued. Strangely enough, her partner had waded at least knee-deep into the water - still wearing his shirt, tie, and pants, but luckily minus his blazer - and not stopping there, he carried on until he was about ten feet upstream from where she was, where he stood and stared at something floating down from over the small waterfall.

"Can I get some gloves?" he said to anyone who was listening, and was quickly supplied with a pair.

She went back to her work, lest she be mocked for staring at him too long. It was true that he was good-looking - and painfully so - but something told her to stay away. It wasn't that he was intimidating, or that he was bad for her - they'd never get along as partners if that were the case - but she knew deep down that if they were to be together and it went wrong…

No. She mustn't think of him that way. They were _working_ partners. Nothing more, nothing less. And she liked it that way - she knew where she stood with him in a working environment. He did the detecting, she and her team did the solving. He got the warrants from the district attorney, she shone the blacklight over the flats and condos. Neither of them overstepped the other's boundary-

"Well, this is unusual…" he mused, breaking her concentration.

But she ignored him, instead choosing to direct the rest of the retrieval team to search a little further downstream - they were missing, as far as she could tell, the first two distal phalanges of each hand, and the left humerus (which, she guessed, one of the team might actually have been hiding as a 'joke').

"What's unusual?" she finally replied, happy that the team understood her requests.

"This money."

"Money?"

Curious, she waded upstream to where her partner was standing, and indeed - the objects he'd been staring at were individually rolled-up ten- and twenty-dollar bills, tied with thin red string, coming one after the other at regular intervals. She picked the next one out of the water for herself before he could say anything, and unrolled it carefully, trying not to rip the wet paper.

"Spanish?" she said, not believing what she was seeing.

"That's why this is so unusual. American bills do not have Spanish writing."

"It could be 'play money', like they use to teach in schools."

"I don't think so. It feels real, and doesn't have 'COPY' printed on it." he frowned, thinking.

"I'll leave you to think about it. I've got bones to locate."

It was a lot easier, she found, to walk back downstream. Her retrieval team had managed to come up with the humerus (go figure), but no phalanges. Two hundred and two bones. Not quite complete, but she doubted the finger-bones would be too much of a loss. With any luck, they'd probably show up where one of her partner's FBI techs had confused them with animal remains, and there'd be a full skeleton. Such things were always better complete.

"You're all dismissed." she said to the large-ish crew of FBI techs.

"What about us?" asked her intern.

"You too… everyone can go. You've worked well."

She planned on staying there a little longer and entering the mind of the killer. She knew the area, knew its secrets, now all she needed… was a motive.

"Can I stay?" asked her partner.

"Of course not. You're just over waist-deep in a lake - in one of your suits."

"I don't carry my trunks around with me twenty-four-seven, unlike you and your… whatever that is."

"It's called a waterproof jumpsuit, and actually, it's not quite suited for this."

"I'm going upstream to find out where this money's coming from."

"It's still coming?" she almost exclaimed.

"At the same regular rate." he replied.

"I don't think it's a wise…"

He was already up to the waterfall and about to climb up onto the bank by the time she could say 'idea'. Lacking anything better to do, she followed him, frustrated with his determination. There was nobody left aside from them, and she couldn't - she wouldn't - leave him here alone in an area he'd never even heard of before. Noticing that she was behind him, he offered her a hand up which she declined, instead choosing to make her own way up onto the bank.

"Be careful, Bones."

"I'm capable of climbing onto a riverbank, Booth."

He waited as she clambered up, more amused than surprised that she could just pull herself out of the water as if she did it every day. Though it was quite dark - almost to the point that they should've been using a torch to see their way - he could still see her wince at something as she stood up. Not in pain, but… almost as if she was flinching away from an image in her mind.

"I don't think this is such a good idea." she said, sounding nervous.

"We'll be fine. I promise." he replied, sounding more sure than he felt.

The pair stayed put, just looking at each other. Truthfully, he now felt as uneasy as she did. It was well-known that she could sense danger from a mile or so away, purely through rational thought and an uncanny ability to always be right. Sometimes he wished he could see into her head. Most of the time, though, he was glad he couldn't. Now was one of those rare occasions where he would've given almost anything to know what she was thinking.

Once he was sure she was sufficiently composed, though, he ignored her warning and started off again, leaving her no option but to follow him. The rolled-up banknotes kept floating by on the lake, always tied with the same red string, and always, they noticed, spinning in a clockwise direction. She thought it had something to do with the current. He knew it was something else.

"Really, Booth, I don't like this." she complained, just sounding pissed off this time.

He stopped, letting her pass him. "The Boogeyman doesn't exist, you of all people should know that."

"I just have the feeling we're going to- oh!"

She tripped over him before either of them saw him there. The man opened his eyes, surveyed his surroundings, and sat up, facing the upright-again woman.

"Careful, sweetness, there are dangerous things in this area. Like me." He laughed.

"Who are you?" she asked, irritated.

"I don't know, I never was named. I've called myself many things, but Jake is my current name."

"What are you doing here?"

"I'm searching for my daughters. They drowned once, I saw it myself, but their bodies didn't show up."

"Once?" she queried, tilting her head to one side in confusion.

"You only live once, of course, but my daughters were like cats."

She reckoned he was crazy, so declined to reply to that one. Instead, she went back to exploring the mind of the possible murderer of their John Doe. They would have to have been an adult. A child killer wouldn't know how to skin and de-bone a human being - she hoped. Probably male, and probably either jealous or angry. The weapon was probably what shattered his skull, unless that was post-mortem - she'd have to check that out later. She started creating a story in her head, envisioning the murder.

The victim was sitting in his lounge-room, reading a fisherman's magazine in front of a cozy fire. The telephone began to ring, so he picked it up from beside him, said hello, and got only static as a reply. Frowning, he put the phone back down, and continued reading an article on how to skin and de-bone a fish while still keeping it in one piece. He heard the door creak open, and, assuming it was his wife returning, pretended to be too absorbed in anything to notice. They'd been having disagreements lately regarding her alleged affair with his friend. Next thing he knew, though, he had a gag forced into his mouth and a blindfold over his eyes before-

"Bones, are you alright? What are you doing?"

"Wha- oh my God, I…" she stuttered, and blinked a couple of times to clear her vision.

She removed her hands from over her partner's mouth and eyes, and backed off, shaking her head. She didn't even know when she'd approached him - she'd been at least three feet in front of him before, and then she was behind him, almost… what? She didn't know, and nor did he, but Jake, the man on the ground, seemed not to have noticed - or, if he had, he didn't care. He was more focused on tying tiny pieces of red string around rolled-up banknotes and setting them off into the water… with his eyes closed.

"Why are you doing that?" her partner asked Jake.

"I told you, I'm trying to find my daughters."

"With fake money and red string?"

"The string is from their rag-dolls, and the money is their play-money."

"Which helps… how?"

"The girls loved them. So they must also love the girls."

"I don't know what that means." she interjected.

"In Spanish, you don't like things - things like you. Me gusta los gatos - the cats like me."

Again with the nonsense. She tilted her head at him again, but this time in a mild disgust as opposed to curiosity. She wondered if anyone ever found her that annoying when they couldn't understand her. She glanced at her partner, who looked about as exasperated as her, but also… shaken.

"Jake, I think you should come with us." he said to the man on the ground.

"Will you help me find my girls?" asked Jake.

"We will try."

"Do you promise?"

"Yes. Dr. Brennan is good at finding… dead things…"

"I am the best in the world." she offered.

"Alright." the man said. "Lead the way."

Back where they started from, marked only by the unrolled banknotes - plastered dry on the concrete slab that was just above water level - she, her partner, and Jack - who looked, in the dim moonlight, like a homeless guy - stopped to look over the area just one more time. Her partner went off to get a torch, thinking he'd noticed something about the general area of the lake - she didn't actually catch most of what he said, but it couldn't possibly be that important.

Jake sat on the concrete, his back resting against a tree-trunk. She thought he looked vulnerable, even with a knife at his hip. He was half-asleep, anyone could sneak up, grab the evil-looking knife, and before he could even begin to realize what was going on… he'd have a knife through his heart.

"Bones, come look at this…"

She came back to her senses as she heard her partner's voice from some distance away. But she didn't have time to respond before she started to hyperventilate. In front of her was the man - Jake - with his hands around a knife sticking out of his chest, blood still spurting weakly from the wound. Something in his face looked frightened, shocked. She fell backwards, and caught herself on her hands just in time, instinctually pushing herself away from the sight in front of her… until her hands slipped.

Wondering why - as the friction of her palms against the rough concrete shouldn't allow this - she lifted her hands to her face. She didn't like what she saw. A vision flashed through her mind - herself as a wild murderess, plunging a knife into an innocent man's chest, the blood covering everything it could reach.

Including, of course, her hands.

She screamed.


End file.
